Local environmental and population-conscious groups raised concerns Wednesday at the Albemarle Board of Supervisors meeting about the ability to control Charlottesville and Albemarle County's projected development.
The Advocates for a Sustainable Albemarle Population presented their "comprehensive plan amendment" for population growth in the County, according to Dennis S. Rooker, chairman of the Board of Supervisors.
ASAP attended the meeting to ask the Board to define the area's "sustainable optimal ... population size," ASAP president Jack Marshall said.
"The first step is to find out how big we want to be," Marshall said. "We haven't asked that question yet."
Currently there are about 130,000 residents in Charlottesville and Albemarle County, Marshall said.
ASAP hopes their statements at the meeting will cause policymakers to research population growth in the area, Marshall added.
"There is a point where the costs of growth exceed the benefits and many communities want to grow," he said. "But we believe that our community ... may have or has already reached that threshold where we should level off."
Also in attendance at the meeting was the Piedmont Group of the Sierra Club, which played a part in writing the proposal, Piedmont Group chair John Cruickshank said.
The group is particularly interested in the environmental consequences of Albemarle County's urban growth, Cruickshank said.
"What we would like to do is protect the natural resource of Albemarle County and Charlottesville," he said. "I think particularly we're concerned about the air quality, the water quality and the preservation of green space."
Though the ASAP proposal was not a part of Wednesday's agenda, chairman Rooker acknowledged the significance of the group's presentation.
"I think that if you surveyed most of the people of the county they'd like to see the Board give thoughtful consideration to ways we might slow growth," Rooker said.
However, Rooker added that there are other factors involved with population concerns, such as birth and moving, that the Board cannot control.
"The one thing that needs to be kept in mind is that legally we are not enabled to directly control population," he said. "What we do control are the land use decisions that are made and those land use decisions have an indirect effect on population."
Though attention was given to the County in general, Marshall acknowledged that the University also plays a major role in the size of Charlottesville's population both in the size of its student body and in the creation of local jobs.
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